


Legacy

by MrsEclipse9856



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-01 09:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5200022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsEclipse9856/pseuds/MrsEclipse9856
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty years ago, George Kirk disappeared. One day, his best friend gets a page from a long disconnected number and asks George's now-adult daughter to investigate. Jim Kirk thinks the call from the arcade is someone just someone messing with Chris and she doesn't expect to find anything. She finds much more than she ever imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was watching Tron:Legacy with my daughter, she made a comment about Sam Flynn being like Captain Kirk and the plot bunny just manifested. In watching both movies again, I realized that they're eerily similar. This story is me putting Trek characters in the Tron universe. It won't be more than ten chapters. As always, I don't own Star Trek or Tron. The things I would do if I did...

"Hey, daddy," she said. "Do you think I'll ever get to see the Grid?"

"One day. When you're older," her father smiled. "The world was more beautiful than I ever dreamed and also more dangerous than I ever imagined. Hop in bed, sweet pea." Jamison did what her father told her to do so that she could hear the rest of the story. "Now, I met a brave warrior."

"Trek," the girl smiled.

"That's right. Trek."

"He fights for the users," she said, holding her Trek figurine.

"He sure does," George told her. "Oh, man, he showed me things that no one had ever imagined. There were these disk battles fought in spectacular arenas. Cycles that raced on ribbons of light. It was so cool. And together..."

"You built the Grid."

He chuckled, "We built a new grid for programs and users. Now, I couldn't be in there all the time, so I created a program in my own image that could think. Like you, and me. And I called him Clu."

"Codified Likeness Utility. I know that one, daddy," she said proudly.

"Of course you do, sweet pea. Now, Clu, Trek and I, we built the system, where all information was free and open. Beautiful. And then, one day, something extraordinary happened. A miracle."

"What was it?"

"That'll have to wait till next time, my little adventurer. I gotta get to work and you gotta go to bed," he told her.

"I wanna go with you."

"Like I said, one day you will. I promise," the man said before giving his daughter a kiss on the head.

"To the Grid?" she asked.

"Good night, Jamison," he smiled. "Hey, what do you say tomorrow you and I hit the arcade? You can take a crack at your old man's high score."

"First game's on me," Jamison said, flipping the lucky coin her dad gave her. "Can we play doubles? On the same team?"

"We're always on the same team, sweetie."

* * *

"Good evening. Our top story. Enterprise Technology CEO and video game icon George Kirk has disappeared," the news reporter said.

Jamison just glared at the T.V. There wasn't much else that a five year old girl could do. Her dad didn't come home. First it was one night, then two, now it's been two weeks. The adults didn't really talk near her much but she heard bits from her grandparents. Enterprise had been keeping it a secret until now.

"Kirk is best known for designing Trek and Space Paranoids, the two bestselling video games in history. He took ownership of Enterprise in nineteen eighty-five as the company skyrocketed to the top of the tech industry. But things changed in nineteen ninety-two with the tragic deaths of Kirk's wife, Winona Davis-Kirk, and their six year old son, George Samuel Kirk junior. Recently, Enterprise board members have been troubled by reports of Kirk's erratic, even obsessive, behavior. Sources inside Enterprise have confirmed that the company's board is seeking to seize control from Kirk's partner, Christopher Pike, vowing to return the company to profitability. In Pike's only statement to the press, he maintains his belief that Kirk is not missing and is instead pursuing his dream of 'a digital frontier to reshape the human condition'."

She watched as they played footage of her dad from an interview. She could even see herself playing in his office behind him, he took her to work with him all the time. He smiled at the reporter, "In there is a new world. It's our future… our destiny."

The reporter returned, "Even Kirk's most ardent supporters are now acknowledging a difficult truth. George Kirk may have simply run away. And while Kirk's loyalists hope for his imminent return, there is perhaps no one who wishes it more than Kirk's young daughter, Jamison, now the heir to an empire in turmoil. What will become of Kirk's legacy and the future of Enterprise Technology will most likely depend on what becomes of this now orphaned little girl."

"You shouldn't be watching this," Chris said from the door.

"Judging by what they said, neither should you," she told the man who looked like he could be her dad's brother. "He's coming back. He promised to show me the Grid. He wouldn't break that promise."

He sat on the floor next to her, "I hope you're right, kiddo. I really do."


	2. Chapter 1

 

She hacked the lock to one of the side doors of the Enterprise Technology tower. Jim –as Jamison preferred to be called these days- could use the main entrance like everyone else, but she didn't want anyone to know she was here.

Tonight, Alexander Marcus, the man who took over the company when the board ripped it from Uncle Chris' hands, was releasing Enterprise OS Twelve. They could call it whatever they wanted but Jim knew better, it was just Kirk OS. They changed the look, added some security and put it in a pretty box. Since they couldn't come up with their own programs anymore, Enterprise just revamped a bunch of her dad's old ideas and sold them for ridiculous prices. It's something her father would hate with a passion. And, it's why she was here tonight.

Jim moved quietly though the building, dodging cameras and hacking her way past a laser grid to get into the main server room. It didn't matter if she was caught on her way out, she just needed to get in and get what she had in mind done before anyone noticed her in the company's server. They were touting this new product as the most secure operating system ever released, Jim was about to show them just how secure it wasn't.

"I know you're in here," someone, probably a guard, said. So, someone upgraded the security system after her stunt from last year, good on them. "Let's make this easy."

"Come on, come on," she whispered as she finished her hack. As soon as her program was done doing it's thing, Jim unplugged her phone from the system and split.

"Freeze!" the guard called and Jim ran. She didn't even need to see where she was going, she knew the building like the back of her hand thanks to Chris. The man was determined to get her to take over the company. For some reason, Jim just couldn't do it. Not yet, at least.

She stopped long enough to chance a glance into the main conference room to watch the idiots chase their tails for a second. Jim was even rewarded with a text message from Chris. 'Nice one, kid,' her phone read. She couldn't help but smile. Jim swapped the master file in the system with a gif of her dog barking and uploaded OS twelve to the internet. Someone had to keep her dad's dream of free sharing alive.

Not wanting to overstay her welcome, Jim kept going up to the roof of the building. She moved out onto the crane on top of the building, snapping her backpack across her chest as she did. This was the fun part. What was the point of owning a tower if nobody's brave enough –or dumb enough- to jump off of it.

"Hey, dad. How you doing?" she whispered into the night. Who knows, maybe he can hear her.

"Where you gonna run to now?" the guard asked, finally catching up to her. Did he not see the pack on her back? He hopped onto the crane with her. "Didn't anyone tell you that stealing is wrong?"

"You can't steal what was designed to be free," Jim told him. "Your boss is okay with this. Trust me."

"The hell he is."

"Your boss works for the CEO and the CEO works for the shareholders. Do you know who the majority shareholder of Enterprise Technology is?" she asked.

"Some girl named Jamison… You're Miss Kirk," the guard said as realization dawned on him. "Why? This is your father's company."

"My father would never sell software. He sure as hell wouldn't sell a copycat operating system to poor schools and broke college students for a hundred and twenty bucks a pop. This isn't his company. Not anymore," she said before she jumped. Jim could hear the guard scream after her but she was more concerned with counting her distance to the ground and pulling her chute on time.

* * *

"Hey, Bones," she smiled and scratched her dog behind the ears. She named the little beast after her best friend, mainly because they both give her the same look all the time. Grabbing a beer, she leaned against the counter and looked across the room. "What are you doing in here?"

"You don't answer your phone," Chris told her before he stole the beer out of her hand and took a swig.

"I was in jail… sorta," she chuckled and acquired a new beer. Since she legally owns Enterprise Technology, they couldn't hold her on anything. She did get a ticket for jumping off the building without a permit though.

"How you been, kid?"

"Cut the crap, Chris. You and me, we don't do this anymore. Whatever you're about to say, I got it all under control."

"Clearly," Chris said.

"What? You wanna help me with my homework like old times? See a movie? Go shopping?" she asked.

"Taking you shopping is worse than pulling teeth," he chuckled. That really was not her thing. Chris sat down on her couch. "You know, you got a pretty nice view here."

"I know."

Jim lived in a house -made out of four shipping containers- that she had built in across near the house boats in Mission Bay. She was in what remains of the industrial part of the neighborhood but close enough to look out and see the Enterprise Technology tower dominating the San Francisco skyline. The place looks more like a garage than a home but it was hers and nobody bothered her.

"I can't believe you did a triple axel off of her a few hours ago. Rough landing, huh?" he asked, motioning towards her shoulders.

"I've had worse," Jim muttered. The downside of wearing a tank top, the bruises were plain as day.

"I also thought your message to the board was very clever."

"Did you like that? That was Bones' idea," she said. "This Bones, not the other one. The other one is gonna kill me when he finds out I jumped off a building."

"How is your grumpy friend?"

"Grumpy."

Her best friend, Doctor Leonard McCoy, was the crankiest person she ever met. Considering that his ex-wife crashed her car and killed their daughter while going to meet her lover when they were still married, Jim didn't exactly blame the man for being bitter. She just made sure that he didn't drink himself stupid.

"Chris, I know why you're here... again. Do I look like I'm ready to run a Fortune five hundred company?" Jim asked.

"No. I think you could be, if you wanted to be. I mean, truthfully, the company is pretty happy with where you are," he said. "This way, they can keep doing whatever they want. Including sell your father's work in their pretty packages and make a mint off of it."

"Nothing to do with me."

"That the thing, all the crazy charities, still endorsing the 'Kirk Lives' movement, the annual prank on the company. You have a very interesting way of being disinterested, Jim."

To everyone, it appeared that she didn't give a damn about the company. That wasn't the case, she cared, she just didn't want to ruin what was left of her father. It was biting her in the ass because Marcus and his minions were messing it up anyway. Unfortunately for Jim, Chris knows that she cares and he refuses to give up on her.

"Why are you here, Chris?"

"I was paged last night," he told her, holding up the small device.

"How eighties of you," Jim laughed.

"Yeah, your dad once told me that I had to sleep with it and I still do. Page came from his office at the arcade," Chris said.

"Number's been disconnected for twenty years."

"I know," he sighed. "Two nights before he disappeared, he came to my house. 'I've cracked it,' he kept saying. He was talking about genetic algorithms, quantum teleportation. He said he was about to change everything. Science, medicine, religion. He wouldn't have left that, Jim. He wouldn't have left you."

"Oh, Chris, you're the only one who still believes that. He's either dead or chilling in Costa Rica. Probably both. Look, I'm sorry. I'm tired and I smell like the police precinct. Let's just do this again next year, huh?"

"Here," he tossed a set of keys at her. "These are the keys to the arcade. I haven't gone over there yet. I thought you should be the one."

"Chris, you're acting like I'm gonna find him sitting there working. Just, 'Hey, sweet pea. Lost track of time'."

"Wouldn't that be something?"

* * *

"Why is there an office down here?" Jim asked herself.

After taking a shower and attempting to get some sleep, she decided that she had to check out the message that Chris got or it was gonna drive her crazy. Now she was confused. Her dad had a big office above the main level of the arcade, so finding the secret door behind the Trek game was a bit of a surprise. It's her own fault for not coming to this place sooner. Chris kept the place taken care of for her but Jim could never bring herself to come inside. The only thing propelling her now was curiosity.

The state of the art computer system in this room was on par with the tech of today, which also meant it was decades ahead of it's time since her dad vanished twenty years ago. "This just got interesting."

She wiped the dust off the combination screen/touch keyboard and sat down. The computer switched from the clock, which had just over twenty years on it, to a command screen. Jim typed in a simple question: Who am I? The answer didn't surprise her: Kirk.

"Huh," she muttered. She typed in some commands to log in, each incorrect. Jim typed in a command to see what was entered before she got here and was rewarded with a list. "What were you working on, old man?" Something caught her attention and she couldn't help but follow her gut. "Laser Control?" she asked as she typed in to repeat the command.

"Aperture clear?" Jim read the dialogue box. "I guess." She hit the 'yes' command and the machines in the room started beeping. Then there was a whoosh. "What the hell?"

Jim was in the same room, except it wasn't the same at all. The dust was gone, everything was sleeker and different. She heard a rumble above her head, got up, ran upstairs and outside. Jim looked around and she couldn't believe her eyes.

"Oh my God. I'm in the Grid."


	3. Chapter 2

"This isn't happening," she muttered. She tried to run but the ground around her disappeared a vehicle of some kind sat down next to her. "Oh, man, this is happening." Two men stepped off and grabbed her arms. "Wait."

"This program has no disk," one of the men said. "Another stray."

"Hey, wait," Jim said again. "Wait. I'm not a program!"

It was no use, they locked her feet into this vehicle and took off again. Jim looked around the massive city. A thought hit her, maybe Chris was right all these years, maybe her dad was just in here somewhere. It would be nice to know why he never came home but living in the Grid wasn't out of the realm of possibility. She was gonna have to ask Chris why he never checked when she got back to the real world, if she got back.

"Hey, does the name George Kirk mean anything to you?" she asked the guy next to her.

"Be quiet if you want to live!"

"Not the games, not the games, not the games, not the games..." a girl a few people away from her kept muttering.

"What's her problem?" Jim asked the guy between them, she was rewarded with a growl. "Don't talk to you either, got it."

"Rectify," a man said as he evaluated them after they landed. "Rectify." He moved to the next guy. "Games. Rectify."

"You probably get this a lot, but there's been a big mistake," she tried to get him to listen to her.

"Games."

Great. Jim had a feeling that games was bad. Her dad told her about two, only ever described one and she had no idea if that's what was going on. Considering that the girl who was mumbling decided that she'd rather die than go to the games and jumped off a ledge as soon as she got herself free, Jim was worried that the crappy feeling she had right now was well worth it. She made an attempt to get the men to let her go but they locked her feet into this elevator thing and she was sent somewhere else.

"What is all this?" she asked herself. There was some buzzing, then four people in white stepped towards her. "Er, can somebody tell me what the..." They started cutting off her clothes. "Hey, I usually get dinner or drinks first."

Like the others, they didn't listen to her. Instead, they affixed pieces of what she could only call armor onto her body, the gaps knitted themselves closed. Jim looked down at herself with a shrug, the suit was pretty cool. Some stretchy, yet sturdy, black fabric with a lit white trim. They even pulled her long blonde hair back, apparently, that's important.

"Attention, program. You will receive an identity disk. Everything you do or learn will be imprinted on this disk. If you lose your disk or fail to follow commands, you will be subject to immediate de-resolution," the computer said one of the guys attached the disk to the back of her suit.

"Mirroring complete," the first woman in white said as a tingle went through Jim's body.

"Disk activated and synchronized," the guy on her other side added.

"Proceed to games," the second woman told her.

"That's not good. Any advice?" Jim asked.

The first woman looked at Jim, "Survive."

* * *

"Disk wars! Disk wars! Disk wars! Disk wars!" the crowd chanted. Jim groaned, this was not what she expected from all the stories her dad told her about the Grid and she was starting to realize that something really bad happened in here.

"Platform Eight," the computer said. "Combatants three and eleven."

"I guess one of those is me," she muttered to herself as the program across from her pulled his disk off his back. "Not good."

Not good was an understatement. The guy launched the disk at her and Jim ducked just in time not to get her head chopped off. The crowd let out a cheer and Jim decided to play along. She pulled her own disk off just as program in another duel was shredded into a bunch of tiny little pieces. That was not happening to her.

Jim threw her disk as hard as she could, the other guy ducked but Jim managed to get a good feeling about what she was doing. Hooray for all those stunts she pulled messing with Enterprise, they were finally gonna be useful for something.

The other combatant took out the glass under her feet and Jim barely managed to catch herself on the ledge and pull herself up before he took out more of her floor. She rolled out of the way and launched her disk. He knocked it out of the way and ran towards her. Jim caught her disk, when the other combatant launched himself at her, Jim hit a panel out of the ground in front of her with her disk. It shattered and he fell through.

"Combatant eleven, de-resolution," the computer said.

"I won. Now let me out!" Jim ordered.

"Combatant three, round one, victory."

"Round one?" she looked around to figure out an escape from this place.

"Combatants three and seven, initiate." This guy was scarier than the last one.

"Screw this," she said. Jim slammed her disk into the other guy as hard and as fast as she could muster, taking him out before he even got a chance to do anything. Then, she took out the ground under her feet and jumped to the platform below her. Breaking into a sprint, she was trying to come up with the best way to get herself out of this thing. She made a leap to another platform but before she could jump again, she found herself enclosed again.

"Initiate final round. Combatant three versus Rinzler."

"Rinzler! Rinzler! Rinzler! Rinzler!" the crowd was going nuts over this guy.

"You gotta be kidding me," Jim muttered.

"Rinzler! Rinzler! Rinzler!" they kept chanting his name.

Jim had a feeling that shit just hit the fan, especially since this Rinzler guy had a disk that could split into two. She pulled her own disk off her back and didn't have too much time to think about anything other than staying alive as the man came after her. He was fast, strong and giving Jim a run for her money.

She ducked and dodged as best she could until the gravity in the room switched and found herself on the ceiling. Jim attempted the same trick as earlier when she broke out the floor but it didn't work, he landed with his feet on the edges. He tried to take her head off again but Jim was actually pretty good a dodging. It didn't help when he cut her arm but she'll live.

"Not again," Jim groaned when the gravity flipped again. You would think she'd be ready for it but she couldn't get her footing. Then there was a disk at her throat.

"De-rez! De-rez! De-rez!" the crowd chanted.

Rinzler stared at her before he growled, "User."

He stood up and dragged Jim along with him to the boos of the idiots who wanted her dead. The pair faced an observation area that Jim didn't notice before. A new voice came up in the arena, "Identify yourself, program."

"I'm not a program," she said. The crowd booed at her some more.

"Identify."

"My name is Jim Kirk."

The whole room went silent. So her family name does mean something in this place.

After a few seconds, Rinzler led her away from the platform to a pair of waiting guards. Together, the four of them stepped into an elevator. Jim stopped herself from asking them anything or fighting them since neither really worked for her so far. She was taken into a room with a bunch of people with orange and yellow lights on their suits.

"There aren't a lot of people who could last that long in a fight with Rinzler," a voice that she hasn't heard in two decades said. The man turned around and looked at her.

"Dad?"


	4. Chapter 3

"Look at you," her dad said. "How did you get in here?"

"I got your message," Jim said. Something about this was just… odd. There was something stopping her from running into his arms like she dreamed of so many times.

"Oh. So it's just you?" he asked as he circled her.

"Yeah. It's just me," she said. "You look the same."

"A lot's happened. More than you can imagine. Disk," he said, holding out his hand. Rinzler handed him Jim's disk. "Let's have a look." Jim looked around the room while he studied the limited information on her disk. "Hmm. I expected more."

"So, you're trapped in here," Jim said.

"That's right."

"And you're in charge," she added.

"Right again. You're two for two."

"So what the hell did you do to my father, Clu?"

Jamison Teresa Kirk is a lot of things but she's not an idiot. The way he looked at her wasn't like a father who hadn't seen his little girl in twenty years, it was the kind of look that sent chills up your spine. Despite what everyone told her over the years, she knew her father loved her. Even if he ran away, his love for her was something she knew could never change. The man in front of her was cold towards her, it was a stark contrast to her father's effervescence.

"He always thought you were smarter then him," Clu chuckled.

"Where is he?" she asked. "What did you do to him?"

"Same thing I'm going to do to you, user," Clu said. "Rinzler."

The program grabbed Jim's arm and pulled her along as the room they were in, which wasn't a room but an aircraft of some kind, sat down in a big flat area. Jim actually knew where she was this time and she couldn't stop herself from getting a little giddy. Her dad used to tell her stories about this one.

"Greetings, programs," the guy who's been following Clu around announced. "Oh, what an occasion we have here before us because the rumors are true. We do indeed have in our midst a user!" The crowd booed. "A user. So, what to do? What does this user deserve? Might I suggest perhaps the challenge of the Grid?" That earned him a cheer. "And who best to battle this singular opponent? Perhaps one who has some experience in these matters?" The cheering grew. "Oh, yes, indeed, programs. Your liberator! Your luminary! Your leader and maker! The one who vanquished the tyranny of the user those many cycles before! Clu!"

"I've been waiting a long time for this," Clu whispered to her. She could understand that. They were both creations of her father but, unlike Clu, she wasn't a copy with a singular purpose. And, her father truly loves her.

Jim looked up at the program who looked like her father did all those years ago, "You wanna play, Clu? I'll play."

"Excellent words, sir. Were you pleased with my execution? The crowd seemed quite energized," announcer Brown Nose said to Clu. They were both so obvious.

"It wasn't meant for them," Jim smiled. "It was meant to intimidate me. Next time, try harder."

"I see someone got herself a little spunk," Clu said.

"Yea, us humans have this cool ass trait, it's called growing up. Something you can't actually do. It must get to you that you're just a twenty year old copy of my father. You're replaceable and delectable," she said. The look on his face was one she would never wish to see on her father, but on Clu it was perfect. A solid mix of shock and pissed off.

"We shall see," Clu told her before turning his back on her and activating a light cycle.

"Grid is live," the computer announced. "Initiate light cycle battle."

"You got no chance, user," one of the programs that popped up next to her said. He was supposed to be on her team?

"Their bikes are faster than ours. Use the levels," another program said.

She grabbed the baton attached to her leg, disconnected the two halves from each other and activated a light cycle. "Now this I can do."

Jim's preferred mode of transportation was her father's motorcycle, an old Ducati that she had to repair a little before she could drive it. It was actually one of the things that a teenage Jim would do with Chris when he wasn't working. She got another bike since then but she still keeps her dad's in impeccable condition.

Going into a light cycle match with a bunch of programs that have obviously done this before had Jim at a major disadvantage. Even though she was outmatched and unsure how this was gonna play out, one thing was certain, she can't let Clu win. He was up to something, she couldn't put her finger on it just yet.

Pulling herself out of her head, Jim got to work. Sadly, it didn't take long for her lose three of her four teammates. Clu knew what he was doing and took them out as fast as possible. Working with the only one left, Jim started to take out Clu's guys one at a time. Never the person she wanted but it was better than nothing. That's when Clu de-rezzed her last teammate and sent her flying without a light cycle.

"That's it," she groaned as she pushed herself up. Jim pulled the disk off her back, if Clu was coming for her, she was not gonna just sit and take it. Clu was a few yards in front of her when a vehicle jumped between them, crashing Clu's light cycle.

"Illegal combatant on the Grid," the computer said.

"Get in," the helmeted driver of the car instructed her. "Get in!"

Jim doesn't like being told what to do but she also didn't want whatever fate that Clu had in store for her, so she got in the car. "Who are you?"

"Hang on," the guy said as he peeled off. She watched as he took out the programs that showed up with Rinzler a few seconds ago. Then, he blew a hole in one of the walls and drove them straight through it.

"Pull up, you can't make that!" she yelled.

"And yet, I made it," he said as they hit the ground on the other side of a ravine. His helmet disappeared and he looked at her. "I am Spock."

Holy hotness, Batman. This guy was gorgeous. Piercing eyes, kissable lips, messy black hair and the most perfect jawline she's ever seen. He should never, ever, wear a helmet again.

"They're turning around," Jim said as she shook the lust out of her head.

"It is not by choice," he told her. "Their vehicles cannot go off the Grid. They will malfunction on this terrain."

"But not us?"

"Indeed not."

"So, Spock… where are you taking me?" she had to ask her handsome rescuer.

"Have patience, Jim Kirk. All of your questions will be answered soon," Spock told her as he continued to drive.

Jim decided that since he pulled her out of Clu's funhouse, she would just go with it for the time being. She looked around as he drove, taking in the outskirts of the world her father created. When did it get so bad? All her dad ever talked about was a place for programs _and_ users but it wasn't like that anymore. Much like Enterprise, the Grid was also missing her father's touch.

Spock drove them into a garage of some sort that was apparently also an elevator. Can you say Batcave? Though, unlike Batman's base of operations, and everything else she's seen so far, this place was light. White was the main color instead of black. She couldn't believe her eyes, this was more her dad's speed.

"Wait here," Spock said before he stepped towards an older man who was sitting on a pillow, facing away from them.

"Spock. I dreamed of Trek. First time in years," the man said as he stood up. Jim knew that voice and her heart lurched.

"It is a sign," Spock replied.

"A sign, my apprentice, of a weary soul. I'm afraid something's happened."

"Something has happened," Spock told him. "We have a guest."

"There are no guests…" whatever he was gonna say next was lost as he turned around and saw her. "Jamison."

"Long time," she smiled. His hair was almost as long as hers and he had neatly trimmed scruff but it was really him. Her father.

"You have no idea," he said, tears in his eyes. "You're... You're here." He walked over and pulled her into his arms. For the first time in a long time, Jim felt like that little girl who believed her dad would show up and take to the arcade like he promised. "You're really here."

"I'm here," Jim said against his chest, her hands gripping the back of his shirt. For a moment, she could forget that it's been two decades since the last time he hugged her. He even smelled the same as she remembered.

Her father leaned pulled back to look at her, his arms still around her. "God, you're grown. You look like your mother, except the eyes. You always had my eyes."

"You're…"

George smiled, "Older and a bit rough around the edges, I know. How'd you get here?"

"Had a long conversation with Chris," she told him.

"Chris Pike?"

"Yeah. He got your page. I went to the arcade, found your office in the basement," Jim said. She couldn't believe it. He was alive and Chris was right, her father didn't just disappear.

"Page... Oh, the page. Of course," her father said, reluctantly letting her go.

"Clu had her on the light cycle grid," Spock said. "I intervened."

"Okay. Dinner soon. We'll talk then," her father said before walking away. Jim opened her mouth to say something but she couldn't think of anything to say.

"He thought he would never see you again," Spock said as he stood next to her, his presence oddly comforting.

"I know the feeling."

Jim had a look around this place her father called home. Spock watched her and answered the few questions she asked. Part of her was jealous that he'd spent some much time with her dad but she was also glad that her dad shared all this with someone, even if it wasn't her.


	5. Chapter 4

"How old are you now, Jamison?" Spock asked as they had dinner. Jim wasn't really hungry but she wasn't gonna pass up a chance to talk with her dad.

"You should be twenty-five," her father said.

"I am."

"Do you attend a college?" Bless Spock for making an effort.

"Did. UC Berkeley," she told them.

"My alma mater," her dad smiled.

"Yeah. It sucked. People started selling pictures of me in class to the tabloids, so I switched to their online program. Still got my degree, computer science," Jim said. Being followed by the paparazzi was bad enough, fellow students taking her photo with their phones was worse.

"Job? Enterprise? Are you…"

"Controlling shareholder. Chris keeps me posted and I check in once a year. I'm not exactly happy with them," she said. He gave her a look. "After you disappeared, they told everyone who'd listen that you were crazy and used that as leverage to strip control away from Chris. They said that you couldn't take it anymore and you just left me. It got to the point where I preferred the whole 'George Kirk is dead' theory because it was the least heartless."

"I'm sorry," he said. "That's not what happened."

"So tell me, what did happen?"

"Those nights when I went to the office, I'm sure you've figured it out by now, I was coming here. Human form into digital space, the stuff dreams are made of. But I also had you. I had Enterprise. I couldn't be in here all the time. I needed partners to help out."

"Trek and Clu?"

"That's right. Trek was created by Chris for the old system. I brought him here to protect this one. Clu was my creation. A program designed to create a perfect world. We were building utopia. Hours in here were just minutes back home. Just when I thought it couldn't get any more profound, something unexpected happened."

"The miracle you mentioned," Jim said, remembering the conversation from the last time she saw him.

"ISOs. Isomorphic algorithms. A whole new life form," her dad said.

"You created them?" she asked.

"No. They manifested like a flame. They weren't really from anywhere. The conditions were right and they came into being. For centuries we've dreamed of gods, spirits, aliens, an intelligence beyond our own. I found them in here," he smiled. "Profoundly naive. Unimaginably wise. They were spectacular. Everything I'd hoped to find in the system, control, order, perfection, none of it meant a thing. I'd been living in a hall of mirrors. The ISOs shattered it. The possibilities of their root code, their digital DNA. Disease? History. Science, philosophy, every idea man has ever had about the universe up for grabs. The ISOs were gonna be my gift to the world."

"So what happened?" Jim asked.

"Clu. Clu happened," he sighed. "It was a coup. He tried to create the perfect system as he saw it but when I created him, I didn't know what a perfect system was yet. To Clu, users equal imperfection. Chaos. Trek tried to protect me but… I don't even know what happened to him, I never saw him again after Clu's programs attacked."

"You didn't fight?"

"Clu fed on my resistance. The more I fought, the more powerful he became. It was impressive, really. And my miracle... Clu saw the ISOs as more of an imperfection than users. So he destroyed them."

"The Purge," Spock added. "Clu leveled the ISO dwellings. Killed any and all ISOs his Black Guard could find. It was genocide."

"I tried to get back but I was cut off from the portal. It uses massive power and it can't stay open forever. Like a safe, it can only be opened from the outside. It closed on me, sweet pea. That's why I never came home."

"The portal activated when I came in. It's open _now_ ," she told him.

"Not for long. Only one millicycle, about eight hours," her dad said.

"So we go now. We make a run for it and we get you out of here," Jim said.

"Don't rush."

"What do you mean don't rush? The portal's gonna close," she was confused. Spock and George shared a look. "What? What is it?"

"The moment Kirk is on the Grid, Clu will stop at nothing to obtain his disk," Spock said.

"My disk is everything, Jamison. It's the master key. The golden ticket. The way out. And not just for me. Our worlds are more connected than anyone knows. Clu figures if I can be in..."

"He can be out. Your disk has the coding to make it possible," she sighed.

"Yep. Then it's game over. The guy doesn't dig imperfection. What's more imperfect than our world? I can't let that happen. I won't," her father told her.

"There has to be a way to get you out of here."

"The problem isn't getting out, it's getting to the portal without Clu's army killing us first. We can't win this one."

"I don't believe in no-win scenarios, something Chris says I got from you. I'm not just gonna hide," she told him.

"He said that?" her dad asked with a smirk. Jim nodded.

"Clu is planning something. We have known that for a time. Programs have been disappearing and there is unrest, even revolution," Spock told her.

"If we sit tight, Clu might be brought down from the inside," her dad said.

"You don't actually believe that, do you?" Jim said. He looked at her. "You say Clu's up to something, I'm inclined to agree. I'm pretty sure that's why I'm here." Spock raised an eyebrow.

"So, you figured out that I wasn't the one to page Chris?" George asked.

"Yep. He thought it was from you, and told me as much, but I'm pretty sure it was Clu," she said. "What if Clu wanted to bring Chris in here to change up the game?"

"It is logical. Clu retains your memories from when he was created, Kirk. He is aware that your friend would do what was necessary to extract you from the Grid," Spock said. "Unfortunately for Clu, Jim is an unknown. He has a very limited amount of information about her as she was a child when he was created."

"When'd you start going by Jim anyway?"

"Seven years ago," she smiled. "Look, dad, I get it. You're safe here, hiding out in your own personal Degobah like Yoda, hoping that Vader doesn't come looking for you. You know what that got Yoda? Dead at the ripe old age of nine hundred after telling Skywalker not to be swayed to the dark side. You don't want that for yourself… or Spock. I know you don't."

"Sometimes life has a way of moving you past things like wants and hopes."

"That's cute, dad. Stupid but cute. I don't know what Clu can do but I know that you're more powerful than him in here. Hell, I don't know much about the Grid but I bet I even have some abilities in this place, I am using your login. Clu knows he has to take you out to beat you, I won't let that happen. Together, we can end this," she told him.

"I'll think about it," her dad said. Jim and Spock watched as he went into a part of this hideaway that she hasn't seen yet.

"How can he be so afraid of his own creation? I mean, he built Clu. Why doesn't he just end him?" she asked the man who obviously knows more about her father than she does.

"He could but it will not be as simple as it sounds," Spock said. "I believe they are connected in some manner."

"Figured as much. Nothing's ever easy." She let out a sigh. "If he refuses to save himself, then I guess I'll just have to do it. He'll forgive me later."

"How?" the tall program asked.

She looked at him. Who designed this guy? They deserve an award of some kind. He was so well formed and symmetrical. Not that now was the time for her to be thinking about this but she really couldn't help it.

"I'm going get to that portal. Clu can come after me if he wants but it won't do him any good. I'll find Chris and we'll figure this thing out from the other side. This may be Clu's domain but in my world, I can delete his ass with one keystroke. I just can't do anything unless I get to the portal. And my gut tells me that you don't want to be stuck in this place for eternity either."

"I do not like this," Spock said, "but, from what I have witnessed, you are like your father and you will do what you want anyway. So, I will help you."

"See, we're getting to know each other."


	6. Chapter 5

Spock gave her instructions to see a program that used to help the ISOs during The Purge. This guy, Khan, was apparently able to get anyone anywhere. Spock told her that she'd have to go the program's sector, as long as she got there alive, Khan would find her. Whether he helped or not was a different story.

Jim took her dad's light cycle and headed out while he was resting, while hoping to hell she's making the right choice. She made it to the sector she was looking for without much effort. Then, she swapped the light cycle with a guy for his jacket, she pulled the hood over her head in an attempt to avoid Clu's people.

"Jim Kirk," a voice behind her said. It was one of the women in white who dressed her for games.

"Uh… hi."

"You appear to be looking for someone," the woman said.

"I'm not that obvious."

The woman smiled, "No, you're not. I'm just that good. Come on."

Something told Jim that following this woman might actually help her find Khan faster. And even if it didn't, Clu's people would never think to look for Jim with another woman since the last time they saw her, she was with a man they couldn't identify. Of course, this woman could also be on Clu's side, so Jim decided that she'd go along until her gut told her not to.

Together, the two women stepped into an elevator that shot up the side of a building and opened into a bar. Jim looked around, spotting some of the guards with beautiful women in their laps. She couldn't help but chuckle at the fact that even programs fell victim to feminine wiles. She did wonder why these programs weren't working. But that's a question for a different day. The pair walked up to a hushed, but heated, conversation.

"His name is Harrison," the woman with her whispered, motioning to a ridiculously handsome man with a mostly British accent. "If you're looking for someone, he's the program who knows where to find them."

"Where's your sense of humor, my friend?" she heard Harrison ask the man with him.

"Programs are disappearing. Soon none of us will be left. Khan can unite the factions for a revolution," the man said. Missing programs could mean a few things, none of them good.

"Of course Khan can do these things," Harrison chuckled.

"Grant me an audience."

"Your enthusiasm is intoxicating, my dear Sulu, but Khan's time is precious," Harrison said before looking at her. "If you'll excuse me for a moment, I have to attend to something. But have a drink, courtesy of the Section Thirty-One Club!"

Sulu looked at her, "It is happening."

"Come, away from these primitive functions," Harrison said as he kissed her hand and guided her away. He looked at her for a long and uncomfortable minute. "The Child of Kirk. Of all the innumerable possibilities, she had to walk into mine. I'm Harrison, your host. Provider of any and all entertainments and diversions. At your service."

"I'm looking for Khan," she told him.

"Indeed. Many are," Harrison said.

"Do you know where can I find him?"

"This, pretty miss, is a conversation best had behind closed doors. Perhaps we should retire to my private lounge," he told her as a set of stairs descended in front of them. He looked at the DJs. "I'm stepping away for a moment, boys. Change the scheme, alter the mood. Electrify the boys and girls if you'd be so kind." Jim couldn't help but smile when the pair gave a nod and the song changed.

"Thank you…" Jim said to the woman who was helping her.

"Carol. My name is Carol."

Together, the three walked into the room. Harrison looked at her, "Khan has been around since the earliest days of the gaming grid. By necessity, he has to mind all the percentages. All the angles."

"So when do I meet him?" she asked.

"You just did," Harrison told her with a chuckle. "After the Purge, I needed to reinvent myself. Self-preservation, you understand. Now, what can I do for you?"

"I need to get to the portal," Jim told him.

"Well, it's closing quickly, as I'm sure you're aware. And it's quite the journey, beyond the far reaches of the Outlands. Your father didn't want any programs slipping out accidentally, did he?" Khan asked but Jim was sure that it was a rhetorical question.

"Can you help me?" she asked him.

"Of course," Khan said. "But first, as a man who prides himself on staying well informed, I must ask who sent you my way."

"You can ask but I can't tell you, sorry," Jim told him. She wasn't entirely sure why she wanted to protect Spock, but that's what she did.

"No matter," he gave her a fake smile and Jim suspected that she might be in a little trouble. "We'll have to change your attire and you'll need a forged disk. Not easy these days. And of course you'll need transport to cross the Sea of Simulation. It's going to be quite the ride."

Screaming from the main floor told Jim that her suspicion of trouble was right. The Black Guard were de-rezzing programs. She spotted that Sulu guy from earlier putting up a good fight with a sword that reminded Jim of a Lightsaber, some of his people still standing.

"I believed in users once before," Khan told her.

"Playing all the angles," Jim shook her head and ran out of the room, leaping when the stairs disappeared and landing in the middle of the fight.

"The game has changed, Child of Kirk!" he yelled.

Jim didn't have time to deal with that idiot, she had to survive the lunatic programs that were after her. Thanks to all that anger management –Krav Maga- she's done over the years, she held her own pretty well… until she didn't. The program looming over her looked like he couldn't decide if he wanted to kill her or take her to Clu. He didn't get the chance to do either, instead, he shattered. Spock held out his hand to pull Jim to her feet.

"I met your friend. He's fantastic!" she said as she retrieved her disk and rejoined the fight. Jim and Spock took fighting stances back-to-back and did their best to fight Clu's men.

"Behold! The child of our maker!" Khan called from his private lounge. Too bad she didn't de-rez his ass before she jumped down here.

A yell from behind her took Jim's attention from her fight and she made a move to help Spock. Jim jumped over him and, using Spock's baton, stabbed the program that cut off Spock's arm. She knelt to check on her father's friend just as everything suddenly went black and silent.

She looked over and found her father in a combat suit like hers with a robe over it, kneeling so that his hands were on the floor. Jim would bet her motorcycle that he just killed the lights.

"I got him, cover me," he told her.

George grabbed Spock's good arm and pulled the unconscious program along as he made a dash to their exit. Jim retrieved her and Spock's disks off the floor and used to them to fight any remain guards that got in their way. The trio got into the elevator and her dad sat Spock against a wall.

"You're stubborn," her father sighed.

"Where the hell do you think I got it from?" she asked. He wanted to be mad but he couldn't hold it and laughed at her question. She was only half as stubborn as him. "Is Spock gonna be okay?"

"He's stable at the moment," he said as he manipulated the controls to the elevator.

"So, you changed your mind, huh?" Jim asked.

"I said I'd think about it. Can I admit that I'm scared that something will happen to you if we try for the portal without you rubbing my nose in it?"

"Yes," she smiled. "If it makes you feel better, I'm scared too… I'm just better at hiding it than you are. Practice."

"I'll bet," he chuckled. "We're gonna do this your way, a full-on sprint to the portal. If we beat Clu there, we have a chance."

"Even if we don't beat him there we have a chance."

"You itching for a fight, sweet pea?" her dad asked.

"You missed most of my life because of him. Somebody ought to kick his ass and it might as well be me," Jim smiled. The elevator slowed to a stop below ground level. Jim didn't know where they were but her dad didn't seem worried.

"You spend too much time with Chris."

"Not lately. I honestly don't know where I'd be without him," she said.

"Hopefully, I'll get a chance to thank him." Jim nodded and pulled Spock off the floor. "You ever jump a freight train?"

"Maybe." She was not telling him all the crazy stunts she pulled. At least, not right now.

"I'll take that as a yes. That one right there will get us to the portal."


	7. Chapter 6

"Let's have a looksee," her dad said as he turned Spock onto his side and detached his disk. "Hold this." Her father activated the information on the disk and sat it in her hands.

"He's gonna make it, right?"

"I don't know. I gotta identify the damaged code. The sequencing is just enormously complex," he told her as he searched.

"Didn't you write it?" she asked.

"Some of it. The rest of it is a bit beyond me."

Jim looked at the coding that made Spock, Spock. It was like nothing she'd ever seen before. A mix of information that shouldn't exist with a triple strand of DNA. "Oh… He's an ISO."

"He's the last ISO," George said.

"So, all this time," she sighed, "you were just protecting him?"

"He's the miracle. Everything I ever worked for. 'A digital frontier to reshape the human condition'."

"You know, I always thought that line was just a bunch of bullshit," Jim said with a smile.

"It's not. In our world, he could change everything," he smiled. "Hmm, got it." Her dad found a cluster of coding that didn't match the rest and pulled it out. Then, he started to repair the gap left in the coding.

"He risked himself for me," she muttered as she studied Spock's features.

"Some things are worth the risk," her father said. He finished his work and turned Spock over to put his disk back. Almost immediately, the damaged arm started to regenerate. "Would you look at that? That is impressive if I do say so myself. Come on, it's gonna take a little while for his system to reboot. It's time for you to tell me a story."

Jim honestly didn't know where to begin, she had two decades worth of stuff to say. For the first ten years he was gone, she used to dream of what she would tell him but she eventually let that dream go. Jim figured that she could start with some general stuff first.

"Let's see. The icecaps are melting, war in the Middle East… again. I don't know. Rich are getting richer, poor are getting poorer. Smartphones, Bluetooth, online dating, Wi-Fi."

"What's Wi-Fi?"

"Wireless interlinking," she told him.

"Of digital devices?"

"Yep."

"I thought of that when you were little," he chuckled. "Winnie's folks? I assume that..."

"They looked after me for about a decade, then they passed. Pop when I was eleven, Gram when I was sixteen. Lived with Chris for a couple years after that."

"I really do owe him one, don't I?" he asked.

"More than one. Even to this day, he always believed you didn't just abandon me. I gave up after Gram died but Chris never did. Maybe he knew you were in here all along."

"It's possible. I wasn't supposed to have the laser and I hid the other office really well. Chris has probably been trying to get into the Grid and he just hasn't had any luck. Though, he was always tight with Clare Robbins, she and Richard Robau built the laser, she could've helped him figure it out. Chris always said she was his number one girl."

"They were married for a little while but Clare died a month before pop did. Cancer," Jim sighed.

"I'm sorry. Is it just the two of you? No boyfriend? Husband?"

"Pretty much. I never really stayed with anyone too long. Too busy trying to figure myself out. Searching for my place in the world even though I already know where I'm supposed to be," she told him.

"Enterprise."

"Yea. There are a bunch of theories on why I never took over like I have every right to do. Some people say I can't hack it. Others think I'm still holding out hope for you. The second one is sorta true. Mostly, I'm terrified. I mean, you changed the technology landscape, then you were gone. I don't know how to compete with that."

He sighed, "You aren't supposed to."

"I'm starting to realize that one," Jim said. "You remember that night when you didn't come home?"

"Vividly."

"You said…"

"I said I'd show you the Grid," her dad smiled. "You should have seen this place back then. I couldn't wait to show it to you."

"Must have been something before Clu screwed it up."

"No, he... He's me. I screwed it up chasing after perfection. Chasing after what was right in front of me," he said as he looked at her.

"Look what you've accomplished. It's incredible," she said.

"I made something much better than this place, sweet pea," her father said. It dawned on her that she's what he's referring to her as his grand creation.

"I'm nothing special, dad."

"You are, you just haven't figured out how special yet." He handed her a small container. "Spock's waking up. Give this to him."

"Welcome back, sleeping beauty," Jim said as she sat down next to a newly awakened Spock and handed him the vial. "It's okay. We're safe for now. We're heading east towards the portal with dad. Once I get out, I can shut Clu down."

"I should not have sent you to Khan. It was a mistake," he sighed.

"It's okay. I've made a few of those myself," she smiled.

"Where is Kirk?"

Jim glanced over her shoulder, "Over there. Knocking on the sky."

"And listening to the sound," Spock said.

"I've never known him to be so Zen. It suits him though. How'd you find him?" she asked. Spock gave her a look. "It's okay. I saw your coding. I know."

"It was during the Purge. Clu was relentless. The Black Guard were executing ISOs in the streets and everyone I ever knew had disappeared. When they came for me, I ran and a sympathetic program smuggled me out of the city. It lasted for a few cycles, but I was eventually found out and I promptly found myself surrounded. I prepared for the end. And just as everything was going dark, I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I opened my eyes, standing above me was the Creator. Your father. He found me."

"That sounds like him," Jim smiled.

"And you. You are more like him than I think even you realize," he said.

"How do you figure?"

"Before I lost consciousness, I saw you protecting me," Spock told her.

"Some things are worth protecting."

"You did not know what I was."

"You're my dad's friend, that was enough of a reason for me." She forced herself to look away from him. In doing so, she got a clear view of the portal. "Wow."

"The light from the portal used to let us know that Kirk was here. It became the symbol of something bigger, something better than this world. I have never been this close before. It is how I imagine a sunrise to be."

"Trust me when I tell you that there's no comparison," Jim smiled.

"What is it like?"

"The sun?" she asked. He nodded. "Hmm… I've never had to describe it before. Warm. Radiant… Beautiful." Jim glanced at him and Spock's eyes were locked on her. She found herself staring back at him. The moment –it was _definitely_ a moment- was broken when the train rumbled.

"Get below! Move!" her dad called to them. "This isn't supposed to be here."

Jim looked at what she could only call a station, a train platform of some kind. What surprised her was that the train they'd been on was full of deactivated programs. She looked at her dad, "What is this?"

"Bad. Clu can't create programs. He can only destroy or repurpose them," her dad said. "This station… He's planning to take them all to the real world. He's building an army."

"Hello, Skynet," Jim muttered. They both looked at her. "Come on dad, you've seen The Terminator. Artificial intelligence decides to exterminate the humans."

"That Arnold Schwarzenegger movie?" her father asked.

"Yea, there's like five of them now." Jim spotted a bunch of planes and smiled. "Can either of you fly one of those?"

"Yes. However, Rinzler is here. We will need a distraction," Spock said. He took off his disk and held it out to her. "Take this."

"Spock, no," she whispered. It was no use, he ran in Rinzler's direction as soon as her fingers wrapped around his disk.

"Trek," her dad muttered.

"Where?" Jim asked. Her dad pointed at Rinzler. "Is that why he didn't kill me in the disk wars?"

"Chris wrote his coding, his root programming would never allow him to hurt a user. Clu corrupted his code, but Trek's main function is to protect us, especially me and now you."

"You think we can get him back on our side?" Jim asked.

"How do you plan to do that?"

"Haven't decided yet. I'll improvise. You get us one of those planes and we'll meet you on the flight deck in a few minutes," she said and ran off to follow Rinzler… err, Trek wherever he was taking Spock.

* * *

"Grab him, we gotta go," Jim told Spock.

She figured out that all she had to do to get Trek back was to fix his code. That was an oversimplification of what happened. There was a fight with some guards and a fight with Rinzler/Trek before Spock managed to get the other program's attention. How Spock knew what she was planning to do, she'll never understand, but he played damsel in distress pretty well and distracted the program long enough for Jim to steal his disk and knock him out.

"Where are we going?" Spock asked.

"Flight deck," she told them.

Together, they made their way to the plane that her father took. Spock sat Rinzler/Trek in the seat behind his own and took flight control. They flew off the platform before anyone even noticed that they were taking it.

"You got Trek back?" her dad asked.

Jim sighed, "I hope so."

"What's his code look like?"

"It's a mess. But you're right about his core programming, it's the same." Trek's coding reminded Jim of Swiss cheese, there were so many holes in it. Clu must've pulled out everything he saw as a threat and locked off everything he couldn't remove. Jim pulled out all the damaged and malicious code before she replaced it like she saw her father do with Spock. "You're staring at me."

"You're rewriting Trek's code from scratch," her dad smiled.

"Yea, well, I wanted to be like my dad."


	8. Chapter 7

"I got this one, sweet pea," her dad said as he gently pushed her behind him. "I had a feeling you'd be here." She should've known it wasn't gonna be that easy. There was a bridge between them and the portal, Clu was standing in the middle of it.

"The cycles haven't been kind, have they?" Clu asked.

"Oh, you don't look so bad," her father chuckled.

"I did everything. Everything you ever asked," Clu said.

"I know you did," George nodded.

"I executed the plan!" Clu yelled.

Her father sighed, "As you saw it."

"You... You promised that we would change the world together. You broke your promise." If she didn't know any better, she'd think that Clu's feeling were hurt. "I took this system to its maximum potential. I created the perfect system!"

"There's no such thing. Perfection is unknowable. It's impossible but it's also right in front of us all the time. You wouldn't know that because I didn't when I created you," her dad said. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry."

"All this, you did all this for her!" Clu yelled.

"She's my daughter. She's the only thing in the universe that I got right. And I missed all of it. She grew into this wonderful being and I missed it," George said. Jim wishes she could reassure him that she was okay but now wasn't the time.

Clu stared at her father for a minute, then he kicked George square in the chest, sending him back a few feet. Instinct took over and Jim started swinging. She landed a few good punches right to that perfect jaw from her memories before Clu even attempted to fight back. For all his big talking, Clu wasn't as good a fighter as Trek and she held her own against him just fine.

"Spock, do it," she called as she dodged a punch aimed at her face.

Before they got to the plane, Jim made Spock promise to get her father out of the Grid if it came down to a choice between the two of them. Clu wants her dad's disk and he has no problem killing Spock, Jim is the safest out of the three if they leave. Even if she's not, there was no way in hell she was leaving her father trapped in here again. Spock gave her a nod and grabbed her dad, pushing him to the portal.

"Jamison," her father yelled.

"Go," Jim said as she rolled away from Clu's disk aimed at her neck. "Shut him down and come back for me." Realizing what she was attempting to do, Clu pushed her off the bridge and tried to run after her father. "Not this time."

Jim, who was hanging on with one hand, pressed the other hand against the floor of the bridge and thought to stop him. Surprisingly, or not surprisingly if you take in everything she's seen so far, a shockwave shot out from her hand and Clu froze in place. They both watched as an angry George and Spock disappeared through the portal.

"You ruined everything," Clu yelled when the portal disintegrated. Jim had to let her hold over him go so that she could pull herself up. "I should've killed you when I had the chance."

"Probably," she said as he pulled her up by her throat. "Go ahead."

"You don't think I'll do it?" he asked her.

"You would… but he won't let you," Jim said as a disk went through his chest and his hand loosened around her neck.

"How?" Clu asked.

"I fight for the user," Trek said as the copy of her father broke into a bunch of tiny little pieces.

She looked up at the spitting image of a thirty year old Christopher Pike. "Welcome back."

He offered her is hand and pulled Jim to her feet, "It is good to be back, Creator-two."

* * *

"Hours and minutes," Jim muttered to herself. She knew that her dad and/or Spock would come back for her but what took them minutes on the outside was gonna feel like hours to her. Jim figured that she could do some good while she was waiting.

She and Trek went back to the station where Clu's army was and Jim hacked the whole system from the main control room. Like she saw her father do in the elevator, she pulled up an interface on the wall and started to pull Clu's malicious coding from the system. Jim watched as she stopped more programs from being repurposed and the circuitry on Clu's Black Guard began to flicker in whites, blues and greens.

"Not bad, Creator-two," Trek said.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" she asked him.

"It's your login," the program who looked like her adoptive uncle told her. "Your father always intended for you to have administrator privileges. The protocols are old, however, they are still valid."

"So, unlike Clu, I can actually create stuff in here?" Jim asked.

"Yes."

She wasn't in a rush to add anything to the mess that Clu made of her father's system but there was one thing she needed to do. Jim set up an alert. When her father, or Spock, came back into the Grid, a signal would be sent from their disk to hers, digitally connecting them to each other until they made it through the portal.

"Can I ask you something, Trek?"

"Yes," he said.

"What happened to you? I saw your coding, how'd Clu do that?" she asked him.

"I don't… remember. It's there, I just can't access it. I'm not sure I want to," Trek told her.

"I don't blame you," Jim sighed.

"Maybe you should get some rest," he said.

"I guess. You'll wake me up if anything crazy happens?" she asked.

"You have my word."

* * *

"Jim, wake up," Spock said as he touched her face.

"I did all that to get you out and you're here," she shook her head.

"Someone had to come back for you and your father has his hands full with Pike-One," he smiled.

"I bet Chris dropped by the arcade looking for me."

"That would be correct. He did not appear nearly as surprised to see Kirk as one would expect," the ISO told her.

"I pretty sure Chris knew dad was in here all along," she chuckled.

"Indeed. The portal is open. Shall we?" Spock reached his hand out to her, Jim took it without conscious thought.

The trip back to the portal was woefully uneventful. There was no one trying to stop them. No race across the Sea of Simulation. Jim sat next to Spock as he flew, watching the way his hands moved over the controls.

"What's it feel like for you in the other world?" she finally asked.

"It is interesting."


	9. Chapter 8

"How is he… real?" Jim asked as she touched Spock's face with her fingertips. He felt as real as anyone she's ever touched.

"See the hoses behind the laser?" her father asked. She looked over her shoulder and nodded. "They're attached to tanks containing CHNOPS. That, plus his coding, makes Spock a real boy."

CHNOPS stands for carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur, the six most important chemical elements whose combinations make up most biological molecules. When the laser sent them through to the grid, their matter was stored. When they were brought back, their matter was reconstituted. In Spock's case, he was 'built' from extra materials instead of restored.

"I'm so glad I paid attention in science class," she said with a shake of her head, dropping her hand from her new friend's face. "So, what's the plan?"

"We change the world," her dad said.

"Uhh, I hate to be the realist, Georgie, but the world thinks you're dead," Chris said. "I think it's best that you keep a low profile and let the kid do her thing."

"Which is what?" her father asked.

"Pissing off Marcus, for starters. Chris, I need you at Enterprise at eight a.m." she told him. "We're gonna do some restructuring, starting with appointing you as chairman of the board. I'm also gonna toss all of Marcus' lackeys. We'll need replacements for them."

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this. I got some people for you. Anything else?" he asked with a chuckle.

"Nothing that I can think of at the moment but I'll let you know," Jim shrugged as they all walked to the main room of the arcade. Spock stopped to examine one of the games. "That's PacMan. I'll play with you later if you want."

"I would enjoy that," Spock smiled.

"I still don't get it," Chris said as he looked at Spock. "What exactly is he?"

"He is gonna help us reshape the human condition," her dad said. Chris' eyes widened as her dad smiled. "He's the Miracle."

Spock was essentially the prefect human. She didn't have to check his blood to know that he had no genetic flaws. He might even have perfect disease immunity or something. Not to mention his ability to learn and process information. Jim didn't even want to think about the battery of tests that Spock's probably going have to go through.

"Chris, you were right… about everything," Jim said as she grabbed Spock's hand and pulled him towards the door. "We'll see you guys later."

"Where are you going?" her dad asked.

"I'm gonna show Spock his first sunrise."

* * *

"What do you think?" Jim asked as they pulled into Chris' driveway.

"It is beautiful," Spock said with a smile. Jim is going to have to take him further away from the city one of these days so he could see more. They definitely had to take a trip across the Golden Gate and head north for a while. He looked up at the sky, shielding his eyes with his hand. "Is it always like that?"

"The sun, yes. The environment between us and the sun, no," she smiled as they walked into the house though the side door. "I'm sorry to say it but that was the easiest part of my day. I don't know what dad and Chris have decided but I do know that they aren't gonna throw you to the wolves just yet. Me, on the other hand, I gotta get in front of everyone take over my father's company."

"Your company," Spock said as they stood in Chris' kitchen. "Your father used to talk about how he imagined you grown up. He always referred to Enterprise as your company."

"I wasn't exactly wrong," her dad said as he and Chris joined them. "Just early."

"You sure about this?" Chris asked.

Jim nodded, "I am. We uh… we better get ready. I should probably head home and change."

"Don't bother, I stopped by your place and picked up some stuff. It's in your room. You're welcome," her uncle said with a smile.

"Thank you," she kissed his cheek and headed up to the room that Chris promised would always belong to her. Pulling off her jacket and heading to the bath room to take a quick shower, Jim smiled. "I'm really gonna do this."

* * *

"The justice department announced today that it'll begin a full investigation into the underground movement known as 'Kirk Lives.' This renegade group has taken responsibility for acts of subversion against Enterprise Technology," the news reporter said.

"Kirk Lives. Who came up with that?" her dad asked. Jim and Chris shared a look.

"Just a guy we know," Chris smirked. One of the engineers that had been with Enterprise for a long time kept the movement going. "I was trying to keep your vision alive. The top brass basically did the opposite of what you would do. They let a bunch of people go and went full-on corporate."

Jim just nodded as she stood next to Spock and watched the news. They had pulled up an old video of Chris.

_"…it's been seven years since you've last seen George Kirk. Do you think there's anyone out there who still thinks he's alive?" the interview asked._

_"Publicly, Enterprise and I have acknowledged the fact that he is gone," the Chris on the screen said. "His disappearance was a massive blow, personally and professionally. This was a man with an entire world waiting to see what he was going to do next. I don't know anything about the conspiracy theories or that sort of thing… I do know that George possesses an undying commitment to his family and his friends, especially his little girl. Kirk is gone. Not dead, but gone."_

"Christopher Pike would later comment that 'Kirk lives, just not as we know him," the reporter said.

" _We needed to find a new way to reach people._ _We needed to think like George," Chris said. "That's when something wonderful happened, Kirk came back... Just a little bit younger and whole lot prettier. Jim Kirk inspired us all. Every year, she'd find some new way to keep Enterprise's board on their toes. She made sure that people didn't forget her father. She forced everyone to remember."_

"While Jamison Kirk and Christopher Pike have been cleared of any involvement with 'Kirk Lives', this investigation may finally put an end to the twenty year old movement," the reporter said. "We'll continue bringing you updates about the investigation as we report live from the Enterprise offices. Sources indicate that Jamison Kirk will be here within the hour to address the board. This will be her first public appearance since she skydived out of a helicopter during last year's Enterprise Expo." Chris turned the TV off a second too late.

"You jumped out of a helicopter?" her dad asked.

"And off Enterprise tower. And over DC a few years back. Bunch of other jumps," she smiled. "It's fun."

"You're crazy," George chuckled.

"Yes, yes I am," Jim said before kissing her dad on the cheek. Then she figured 'what the hell' and kissed Spock on the cheek too. "Chris, to the Batmobile."

* * *

"Miss Kirk, do you have a comment about the release of OS twelve?" someone called as Jim and Chris walked from the curb to the main doors of Enterprise Technology with a pair of security guards. Her father and Spock stayed out of sight at Chris' place.

"Jamison, do you think your father is alive?" someone else asked, shoving a digital recorder in her face.

"Over here, Miss Kirk, one second…"

"Miss Kirk, do you have any statements for the press today?"

"Jamison…"

These people are relentless. The questions blurred together like that usually do on the rare occasion that she lets herself anywhere near the press. Fortunately, Chris taught her how to keep her shit together when there were in her face throwing questions at her.

"Do you have anything to say at all?"

"Yea," Jim said from just inside the door of the tower. "Kirk Lives."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This the last chapter before the epilogue.


	10. Epilogue

"You wore her out," Jim sat across from her dad. He didn't say anything, just shifted the four year old in his arms and smiled. As she watched her father holding her daughter, Jim couldn't believe that it's been almost ten years since that night were everything she thought she knew changed.

Taking over Enterprise Technology wasn't nearly as terrifying as she thought, then again, her dad wasn't some dead man she had to live up to anymore. There were those who gave her grief over the sudden take over, none more than Alexander Marcus. He argued that she didn't have the right to just swoop in and take the company, Jim reminded him, and everyone else, that it was always her company to take and if they didn't like it, they could go. Unsurprisingly, Marcus left half a second before she could fire him. Jim fired a bunch of his loyalists and replaced them with the team Chris put together for her.

After running Enterprise for about two weeks, her dad decided that the public, especially the 'Kirk Lives' movement, deserved to know what he'd been up to for twenty years. With his reemergence, was Spock's introduction to the world.

There were questions, there are still questions, about what Spock was and where he came from. What people didn't question was his ability to solve problems rapidly, take in information like a computer and the healing properties of his blood. Her best friend actually cursed her out for 'making a boyfriend that puts me out of a job.' Jim really didn't have anything to do with Spock's creation and all it took was a quick trip to the Grid for Bones to see that.

Digitization has been made public. It's still controlled by Enterprise and the government but people now knew it existed. Hard to keep it a secret when they were using the Grid as a way to get rid of different diseases. Cancer was gone. AIDS, HIV, MS, Alzheimer's, all gone thanks to a method that her dad and Spock developed for taking people in and clearing the 'code' from their body's while whoever was on the outside deleted the code from the system.

Not to be outdone by her boys, Jim took her stand on the technology side. She created wearable healthcare. Scanners that, like the disks in the Grid, sync to your system and record every bit of biometric information about you. They alert you to every problem you could have and in some cases, they've been known to save lives. Hilariously, she gave them away for free and still managed to make a profit somehow. Pure George Kirk move.

People thought that when her father came back, Jim would turn everything over to him but he refused, Enterprise was her company and that's the way he wanted it to stay. She did talk him into staying on as a consultant for her and Chris.

Having her uncle as the chairman of the board was a blessing of epic proportions. Jim had the knowledge to run the tech side of the company but not enough business to run the business side of the company, that's where Chris came in. He hired all the right people, did all the right business stuff and made sure that while Jim, Spock and George were saving the world, Enterprise was still in one piece.

The biggest change in Jim's life came from the one place she wasn't expecting, Spock. One day, they were working late at the office, she looked at him and it just hit her that this was the man she was going to love for the rest of her life. Two years later, they were married… or as married as someone who didn't legally exist could be. Their daughter, Samantha Christina Kirk, came a little over two years later.

Their little girl was mix of Spock's black hair, Jim blue eyes and both of their brains. It was unreal how smart the now four year old was. Though, it didn't surprise Jim that Sami only sleeps a few hours like Spock does. She's found the pair of them awake really early in the morning and staring out at the sky as the stars disappeared and the sun came out. What really got Jim was that Sami's DNA resembled Spock's more than it did her own. Sami was mostly a human/ISO hybrid and Jim had no delusions that the little girl sleeping in grandpa's arms was going to change the world even more one day.

"I have a way with kids," her dad whispered.

"Uh huh."

"It's true. I remember that you wouldn't sleep for anyone but me when you were a baby," he told her.

"Got over that, didn't I?" she asked sarcastically.

"You did but it took some work," her father smiled. "She reminds me of you."

"It's the eyes. She got the family eyes," Jim said.

"True but that's not what I meant. She's got your spirit. I'm pretty sure she's gonna take over the universe one day," he chuckled quietly.

"Of course she will. She's gonna do a great many things when she's ready just like I took over the company when I was ready," Jim smiled.

"And if she's never ready?" he asked.

"She's a Kirk, she was born ready. All she has to do is have faith in herself. Spock and I will make sure that she does."

"I'm glad you came looking for me," her dad whispered as he ran his fingers through Sami's hair. "There was a point, around the sixteenth year, where I thought I should just die. That maybe if I killed myself… Anyway, every day Spock would give me a reason to wait until the next day. He did that every day until the day you showed up now here we are. You with the company and mother and I get to watch it all happen."

"You're going all sappy on me, old man," she smiled.

"I know. I just… I love you, sweet pea."

"I love you too, dad."


End file.
